Reading Nook {Part 2}

7:10 PM

This ongoing project to make a little furniture set for the playroom, if I should ever get one, to designate a corner as the reading nook continues on. Part 2. I've started moving on with different phases. I stripped my craigslist kids table, and painted it a flat white. I'm still sanding and reinforcing my rotten Kirksville stools, and I haven't even bought the wood for the Knock of Wood chairs I plan to build. But I'm really excited to share the theme of this whole thing...

are you ready?

My favorite children's author who just happens to also work with my favorite children's illustrator on almost every book.

The theme of this reading nook is:

Together they created such stories as:

The Witches

Charlie & the Chocolate Factory

James & the Giant Peach

Matilda

The BFG

The Twits

and more. As a kid I remember always going straight to the "D" shelf of the Sandy, UT library in the kids section. Roald Dahl. They only had a few of his books, so I'd check them out and re-read them. My favorite was Matilda. I don't know if reading it made me feel smarter like Matilda or something, but I loved it so much, I tried to get my little sister to read it. Lynette was not interested. So I sat on her so she couldn't run away and would read aloud with her screaming for our mom, but I had planned to sit on her in the basement so we could both delight in afternoon's of Matilda.

Interestingly, even after her childhood torture, Lynette also did love and enjoy Roald Dahl's books...although I don't think Matilda is a favorite.

So my first painting in the series was a leg of the table. Each leg will feature a different book, so far Esio Trot, James & the Giant Peach, and today's. I'm still thinking of what book I want on the 4th leg.

So the first leg of the table was from the book The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me. It's about this magical team, (Me = monkey) and their adventures as they wash windows.

It's great to immitate Quentin Blake's illustrations because they are kind of sloppy sketches with little detail. I really like his style.

Most of his published illustrations are pen/ ink, so I wanted that to be there on these little paintings, but I didn't want to use a detail brush to paint in all the pen. So instead I used a Sharpie.

The process was quite fun:

As I was looking through my book, the last page has the whole group together, and so I used this as the plan for the table leg. It worked out well with the giraffe being tall and skinny for the weird space I am painting on. I planned all the books for each leg, and then when I looked at the table closely realized the legs were much thinner than in my mind, so more wrapping of the images around.

I'm really glad I decided to draw with a Sharpie the ink details. The hexagonal shape of the table leg made smooth lines difficult around the corners, so it's all kind of sloppy and turned out quite well I think. I'm excited to finish the rest of the table legs, and then move onto the stools and chairs.